


Rage against the dying of the light

by mybigfatcat



Series: GRi drabbles and oneshots for a rainy day [12]
Category: Big Bang (Band)
Genre: Is there a thing like a two part oneshot?, M/M, One Shot, Short One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-09
Updated: 2019-03-05
Packaged: 2019-10-25 01:18:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17715308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mybigfatcat/pseuds/mybigfatcat
Summary: Sometimes Jiyong also wants to kick and destroy things, sometimes he also wants to wage a war against the world and scream into the night.A short oneshot for a rainy day.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> DISCLAIMER: This is fiction and nothing but fiction. It is not meant for commercial purposes.

-

 

Sometimes Jiyong also wants to kick and destroy things, sometimes he also wants to wage a war against the world and scream into the night. But he doesn’t, he holds it in instead.

-

Seungri has bags under his eyes, he’s got new wrinkles at the corner of his eyes that Jiyong has never seen before. New and microscopic lines that show up when Seungri squints through the restaurant window at the stark daylight outside. His face is full, it’s soft, and the small bumps that whisper of a future pimple outbreak on his chin makes him look painfully young. His eyes, on the other hand, look old and tired.

The restaurant is almost empty, it’s only noon. Jiyong thinks that all restaurants outside military compounds look the same. It’s the same tired plastic floors, the same cream coloured walls. The same dusty windows with the distant view of the military fences. He’s been in dozens but they all feel like the same one. And all the visits blend together in his head.

He looks down at his hands and imagines his parents and his sister sitting opposite him, imagines hyungs from his division sitting there, imagines his friends coming for a short visit. He looks up and sees Seungri’s tired look. Seungri who doesn’t wonder, he knows why Jiyong is there.

“Hyung, did you really have to?” he’d asked when he saw Jiyong waiting for him by his car on the convenience store parking lot.

He’d known instantly, he’s seen right through Jiyong in an instant. The thing is, Jiyong has no idea why he’s there.

“You look good, Seungri-ya,” Jiyong says to break the silence. They’re seated opposite each other, they’re waiting for their food. The lady who owns the place has already served them some side dishes and their drinks, Jiyong has had a sip of his sparkling water while Seungri has yet to touch anything on the table.

Seungri sighs and hangs his head.

“I look like shit, I’ve been on night duty for a month,” he says and when he looks back up at Jiyong he’s gathered himself and he looks just like the bubbly young guy he is. His defenses are up.

Jiyong leans back and nervously clears his throat.

“I just thought.... I was released and It’s been two months. It was time I came to check in on you, to make sure you’re not up to something bad,” he says and takes another sip of his water.

The bright light betrays him as a flush spreads on his cheeks, he’s sure of it.

“So it’s got nothing to do with the person you’ve been seeing intensely these past months, or the fact that I got a call from my friend who owns that hotel in Burma asking if it really was you who had booked his luxury suite?” Seungri asks.

Jiyong can feel his blush deepening.

“That’s none of your business,” he says with a low voice and carefully looks around the room to see if someone is close enough to have heard what Seungri has said. His palms are sweaty around the glass.

They keep the rest of the lunch at a more friendly atmosphere, and Jiyong drives home with a lump of anger and irritation in his throat that threatens to choke him by the time he parks his car in the underground garage.

Seungri’s tired eyes look at him in his dreams, and then he cancels his trip just to get some peace of mind.

-

Sometimes Jiyong wants to throw a chair through a window, to kick and scream at walls and to throw a lamp across the room. Sometimes he wants to pour bottle after bottle of shoju down his throat and to pass out on a hotel room carpet. He can afford the bill, he can afford the stamp as a privileged celebrity gone out of control because he doesn’t care. Really, he doesn’t care.

That’s what he tells himself, that’s how he lies to himself. Because the image he’s afraid of late at night, the reputation he’s avoided for this long, has the potential to wreck it all.

So he doesn’t think about it, tries to push it away. He tells himself that his trip up north to go see Seungri was just a courtesy call, a visit to a friend. Something a real friends would do. He tells himself that it wasn’t his desires winning over him, that it wasn’t his confused mind getting him in that car, making him drive all that way in the early morning not even knowing if Seungri would be allowed to leave the base even for a few minutes.

And his cancelled trip, his long string of short and failed relationships, that all of that has nothing to do with it either.

-

The apartment is empty, he’s been alone all day. The evening city outside couldn’t be further away. His mind has drifted and as always when it does he finds himself thinking about Seungri.

About Seungri’s tired eyes at first. Then about the underlying hostility, the defensive attitude he had shown. It doesn’t make sense at first, hadn’t even then, but now Jiyong thinks he can sympathise.

Seungri had only been 18 when he had confessed his blossoming crush to Jiyong, and Jiyong had never really thought about it much. He had just kept treating Seungri as his adorable maknae.

Now, Jiyong suspects the story to have been reversed, because when he imagines Seungri’s face and his voice again - when he imagines the way their bodies fit together in a hug - his skin burns. When he imagines Seungri’s voice and his lips, when he closes his own hand on his hardening erection, he can too feel that burning jealousy. And when he lets it consume his, skin and flesh, it feels a little like raging at night.

-

It feels alot like raging in daylight, like kicking down walls and breaking boundaries and smashing prejudice against the floor, when he drives back north the following day. This time, when Seungri looks at him with those tired eyes, Jiyong knows that he wishes he could kiss them.

 

-


	2. Do not go gentle into that good night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Loving Jiyong is like standing too close to fire, it’s like running so fast your legs stumble, looking for too long at the sun, orbiting in a downwards spiral around the earth._
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Part 2 of a short GRi oneshot for a rainy day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, okay, I couldn't just leave it at that. Here's Seungri's POV. This second chapter is dedicated to all of us, all the VIPs in this tough time. Hang in there friends, don't go gentle into that good night, rage, rage against the dying of the light.
> 
>  
> 
> DISCLAIMER: This is fiction and nothing but fiction. It is not meant for commercial purposes.

-

 

Loving Jiyong is like standing too close to fire, it’s like running so fast that your feet stumble, looking for too long at the sun, orbiting in a downwards spiral around the earth - the inevitability of destruction and utter ruin is always completely clear. You’re going to burn, trip and fall, crash, and go blind. It’s going to be spectacular, it’s going to be like watching two moons raging against each other through the cold vacuum of space and eviscerate each other in a monumental explosion of debris.

Seungri knows this, sees this. He can feel the ripples of chaos underneath it all, the force that constantly pulls him to Jiyong and wants to be set loose on them. If a butterfly flapping its wings in New Mexico can cause a hurricane in China, then one word from Jiyong about love can bring Seungri to his knees.

Loving Jiyong is like slowly burning to a cinder from the inside. Seungri wonders of what use he’ll be when the fire burns out, when there’s nothing left for fuel.

-

Inch by inch, the fire consumes Seungri . Almost a decade passes and he’s molten lava. Fifteen years go by and now he’s ash.

-

Jiyong looks different. Maybe he’s too pale, or too thin. Seungri knows what he himself looks like, knows the bags under his eyes are creating darker shadows than ever before, he knows what the standard soap is doing to his skin. He doesn’t mind, usually. Now he minds, he cares about it alot when Jiyong looks at him with those eyes that are too sharp. How is it that he can go months without feeling this very familiar sense of panic, and then all Jiyong has to do is to _look_ at him and it bubbles up from the depth of his stomach and spreads like wildfire.

Seungri smiles and asks the things he wants to ask. Asks about the romantic vacation Jiyong has planned with a girlfriend, asks if he thought that Seungri wouldn’t know.

Neither of them asks the question that needs to be asked. No one addresses the elephant in the room. Seungri doesn’t care if it makes him look jealous, he tells himself that he’s only looking out for the group by avoiding scandals. Jiyong doesn’t ask why Seungri is jealous, and he doesn’t explain even to himself why he later cancels his trip and stays in Seoul.

Instead Jiyong comes to visit again, and when Seungri gets a few days off he makes sure that Jiyong knows.

-

Whenever Jiyong becomes a bit overbearing, too protective or clingy, then Seungri pushes him away. Cuts him out of his life for a while.

When Jiyong gets too close to him he loves it at first. Loves the attention and the way Jiyong invites him to dinner, asks him to come out for drinks, wants him to join him at home. It usually only takes a few months before he realizes how he’s fallen even deeper in love with Jiyong, and that it will hurt even more to distance himself this time.

Yet it happens again and again, and it hurts more every time. Each time it pulls Seungri in faster than the last, and the realization comes to him slower. What hurts even more than this masochistic dance is when Jiyong is the one pulling back, and it happens more often the older they get.

Then one day Jiyong doesn’t let Seungri back into his orbit, and Seungri thinks it’s time he enlists.

-

“Do you sleep at all or are you just using your bed roll to hold your equipment?” Jiyong asks during one of their short get-togethers. Seungri hums and fiddles with the takeaway coffee cup in front of him.

“I know, I look tired,” Seungri agrees.

Jiyong reaches out and pokes Seungri in the left bicep, it’s just in reach of his long fingers.

“At least you’re coming out of it with some more muscle,” Jiyong teases and seems unaware of how Seungri’s skin now burns under his T-shirt, how Seungri has to draw in a slow breath in order to not gasp.

That, Seungri thinks, is the first time he has touched me in a year.

It’s not that he’s not been confused by Jiyong’s sudden revived interest in him these past few months, it’s just that he thought maybe Youngbae or Daesung were too busy to visit and that Jiyong had taken the task upon himself. One visit has however turned in to several and Seungri has honestly seen more of his friend than of his own sister.

Then there’s the chat messages, the calls, the fact that Jiyong has arrived unfashionably late to at least two big events in favor of adapting his schedule to Seungri’s rare and short breaks.

The thing that confuses Seungri above all, is that when they part ways afterwards, when Seungri gets out of the car and Jiyong stays in it, Jiyong looks as reluctant to let Seungri go as Seungri feels about going.

“Get some sleep, please,” Jiyong reminds him. Seungri nods and decides not to overthink it. 

He doesn't overthink it, at least not for 24 hours. Then the doubts and the questions and the feeling that there’s something he’s not seeing comes crawling out from the depths of his usually calm subconscious. Scrubbing the floors makes him think of Jiyong, training makes him think of Jiyong. Lunch, instructing newbies, sneaking into band practice, dinner, marching, lying on his bunk bed - all of it makes him think of Jiyong and his new and different interest in Seungri.

Not different in the intensity but perhaps different in the sincerity. Or in the intention itself. All Seungri knows is that when Jiyong looks at him it feels like every cell in his body screams - and he doesn’t dare listen to what they say.

-

He ignores it all for month after month.

-

Fire needs fuel, heat and oxygen. Jiyong is the heat, Seungri is the fuel. The oxygen is time, and as time goes by there’s less and less for the flames to breathe. It’s when the flames have died, and when Seungri stands like a burned husk, that Jiyong opens the door and air floods back into their atmosphere.

-

That Jiyong is waiting for Seungri outside the military base on the day he is released, that’s a surprise.

“Your mother told me I could bring you home,” Jiyong says and Seungri can hear nothing but him even if his voice is low enough to be drowned out by the groups of screaming fans that have gathered around the front of the base.

“Home?” Seungri asks, and Jiyong looks away. He doesn’t look unbothered by the noise.

“Let’s get in,” Seungri adds and goes to the back of the car to throw his bag in the trunk. He has time to freak out on his walk back to the side of the car. Has time to feel his heartbeat rise as he opens the backseat door. Can hardly hear or greet the manager in the front seat properly for the sound of blood rushing through his veins.

They both fall quiet as they sit beside each other. Jiyong is wearing his too big and too fluffy padded jacket, and Seungri is still in his uniform.

“Welcome back,” Jiyong then says, and Seungri feels the warmth from those words and the meaning behind them spread through his body. He’s really happy to have me back, Seungri thinks and smiles.

He’s still smiling when he’s dropped off at his parents’ place back in Seoul. He keeps smiling even when his father gets a bit teary eyed and his mother hugs him way too tightly. Jiyong and the company car are long gone by then, but when Seungri sends him a chat message he gets an instant reply.

“What are you doing tonight?”

“Nothing.”

“Wanna come over?”

“Sure.”

-

When a star is about to die they burst, they vomit out material that spreads out into the surrounding vacuum, before torturously slowly shrinking into the black nothing. Seungri thinks that he’s been slowly fading since the day he met Kwon Jiyong. He just didn’t know it, but looking back... it feels all this time he’s been furiously burning spewing materia out into the void. His core is heaviner now, denser, and his dreams aren’t as light as they used to be and he doesn’t dare to fly as high in them.

Seungri feels more tied down, he feels his own gravity pulling at his flesh, feels his skin tighten around his being.

Yet he’s not alone in the nothingness of space, and a power that is greater than him, the power that draws him to Jiyong, pulls just as much at his skin and bones.

When they collide, when the chaotic powers surrounding them finally brings them together, he just knows that it’ll be the end of something. What it’ll be the end of he doesn’t dare to speculate on.

Maybe it’s fear that’s making him burn hard and fast.

Seungri once had a dream about fear. He had stood in the middle of a baseball stadium filled to the brim. He knew it was a pivotal game, he knew they had to win this game. The dream him stood in the baseball field diamond in the end of the ninth inning and he was about to pitch the deciding ball. Fear surrounded him like a fog, every breath he took was fear. The weight of this pitch was so heavy on his shoulders that when he was handed the ball it felt like they had handed him a weight made out of led. As heavy as the dense core of a dying star.

If he fails, if this pitch doesn’t lead to a strike out, then he knows that the dreams of his team will be ruined only because of him. As he positions himself, trying to move his limbs against the drag of the tentacles that fear has wrapped around him, he closes his eyes and breathes. The first breath is heavy and the second too, but by the third he feels a crack in the bubble around him. He hears the cheers of the audience, he hears the voices of his teammates and the music in the stadium speakers. When he opens his eyes again he knows why he’s throwing the pitch.

In the dream he wins the game, he’s lifted up to the skies by the strong arms of his team and his friends. The cheers of their fans washes over him and the smell of the grass disappears as it’s replaced by the warm and heavy smell of pyrotechnics and thousands of humans in one contained space. He looks down and just before he wakes up he sees a flash of a face that his heart has memorized every millimeter of.

Fear is something to be overcome.

-

“Are you sure you want to go back to the apartment tonight? You can always sleep here,” Seungri’s mother tells him as they stand shoulder to shoulder in the kitchen with their gloved hands covered in suds. He knows that the only reason that he’s even allowed to do manual labour today is because she wanted to talk to him alone and away from prying ears. She does that sometimes, asks him to help with what seems like a menial chore but then she prods at his sore spots and makes him spill his secrets.

This night is different because the only secret he has is all consuming and his whole body is sore from the burdon. It’s a secret that no one can know. Not now when he feels like he’s about to get ripped into pieces.

“Don’t worry, I’m not tired. I just want to sleep in my own bed,” Seungri replies and rinses off a pile of rice bowls that his mother has stacked up in the sink after washing. Then he tackles the spoons and the chopsticks.

He can feel her eyes on him.

“Hmm,” she says and hums, “I guess my son is an adult now.”

Seungri snorts a bit and leans closer to her so that their shoulders are pressed together.

“Don’t worry, mother. When my washing machine explodes you will always be the first person I’ll call,” Seungri says.

He smiles but on the inside he feels a big void open up. If he ever has to choose between this and... something else, well he has no idea what he would pick. He knows what he wants to pick, what every fiber of his being wants him to pick. What you want is not always what you get and what you do is not always what you want.

His mother doesn’t seem to notice how his mind is occupied with his secret desires, and he hides it from the rest of the family as he leaves half and hour later in a cab. The reality of what he’s doing, the fact that he’s about to go and yet again confess to something that by morning he will have either finally faded away or burnt hotter than a supernova, is exhilarating. Staggering. Surreal. Super fucking strange.

When he finally steps out of the elevator in his building he sees Jiyong waiting for him by his apartment door.

Seungri thinks that he has been wrong all along. He’s not as, nor coal, nor has he crumpled into soot. He’s glass, fragile and quivering with vibrations at every touch or word. For Jiyong he’s a cup, a bowl, a glass horse to put on a shelf. He’s melted from rough sand to smooth and liquid glass and spun into whatever shape it is that fits into the unknown puzzle piece that is Jiyong. When Jiyong looks up at him he can feel his body sing.

He has no idea if the note is pure or if it’s off. If his piece of the glass puzzle doesn’t fit into Jiyong’s.

“Took you long enough,” Jiyong says. He looks small and like a giant all at once as he looms by the door. He smiles, a bit teasingly like always.

“You’re early,” Seungri replies and reaches out to press the right numbers into the code lock on the door.

He can see that Jiyong’s smile isn’t as confident as it had first seemed.

God save them both if fear is the force that is the strongest. Seungri is wary, but now they’re stepping into the safety of his apartment and the door closes and locks itself behind them. He can busy himself with setting down his bags and taking his shoes off.

When Jiyong suddenly speaks he jumps a bit despite himself.

“I was too impatient, I couldn’t stay at home. I needed to get here and see you,” Jiyong says. He’s taken off his sneakers but he’s still standing beside Seungri.

“See me?” Seungri asks, “you saw me this morning.”

It’s Jiyong’s turn to sigh. His eyes are tired, his hair is unstyled and the black strands hang down past his eyebrows. Seungri looks closely at him, actually looks at him, and feels his heart burn just as strong as ever when he looks at the angles of his face, at the softness of his lips and the sharpness of his jaws. He loves Jiyong, he loves him even when he’s hurt by him, he loves, loves and loves. It’s in the chaos that brings them together, love is everywhere and it’s the match the sets him on fire and molds him.

It’s the words that are on the tips of his lips, it’s the secret that is his entire being, it’s the things that will make him fade or burn even stronger than before. He opens his mouth, the words about to spill out, the catastrophe about to happen, the supernova is going to spew his soul out into the universe if he says it. He ignores his shoes, the bags, his coat, the fact that they’re still in the entrance of his apartment. All he can see is Jiyong and what he thinks is love mirrored in them.

“I have something I need to tell you,” Jiyong says and breaks the spell.

Seungri pulls back and feels ripples of the built up energy leaving him. Maybe this is a warning.

“Sure,” he says after clearing his throat, “make yourself comfortable.”

He’s a coward, but this he already knew. He walks past Jiyong with the tail between his legs as he drops his bags off in his bedroom, throws his coat on the bed and quickly washes his hands in the bathroom sink. He can hear Jiyong moving around in the living room.

He can’t let his hyung wait forever, but more than anything he wants to crawl under the covers and combust. He wants to hide as he self-destructs.

Ultimately it’s not in his nature, and he wipes the sweat on his palms on his jeans before walking out the bedroom door. Even if he feels like a coward he can’t act cowardly, not now.

-

The face in that dream, the face that belonged to a pair of strong arms holding him up, it was Jiyong’s face.

Seungri would trust Jiyong with his life, he trusts his leader, friend, his hyung through thick and thin. If Jiyong can’t cry then he will cry in his place. If Jiyong can’t bare a burden then he will do it in his place. That’s what love is.

And Lee Seunghyun burns with his love for Kwon Jiyong. Even as he sleeps, and even as fear tries to rule him. Seungri would be nothing without it, wouldn’t be who he is today. Sometimes he thinks that maybe he would never even exist if there was no Jiyong in the world to love.

What it is like to be _loved_ by Jiyong, passionately and fiery loved... that’s something he has hardly even dared to even imagine.

Only in feverish and sweaty dreams. In dreams where not only his flesh burns.

-

Maybe it was inevitable from the very start, maybe they’ve both been fooling themselves by avoiding this.

Seungri tells himself this, steadies his steps with the concept of inevitability, as he walks through the living room and takes his seat on the couch next to Jiyong. The room is bright, the city outside the building is hidden in the night and in the glares in the windows. They’re made of glass just like him.

“You change out of your uniform,” Jiyong says, breaking the silence.

Seungri lets out a nervous laugh.

“Yeah, I didn’t really need it anymore. At least not to dinner with my family,” he pauses and looks over at his friend.

“Did you like it?”

Jiyong’s face quickly reddens, but he stubbornly keeps eye contact with Seungri as if it’s a challenge.

“I didn’t know you liked me in uniforms... but maybe I should’ve guessed,” Seungri teases, “what with your love for nurses.”

“I don’t like you in uniforms-”

“You did like it that time when I was in a school girl uniform,” Seungri continues to tease.

“No that’s not-”

“Sure hyung, sure,” he says smugly.

Jiyong frowns at him, has his arms crossed across his chest in annoyance. Seungri thinks he’s hit a sore spot. He’s just about to prod harder, his mother’s technique is all he’s got, but then he’s the one that gets interrupted.

“Will you just shut up and listen!” Jiyong halfway shouts, halfway growls. Seungri startles and whatever he was about to say is forgotten.

“You always do this,” Jiyong continues, frustration written clearly on his face. “You always joke or try to avoid me, you always PUSH when I try to be... I don’t even know but _this_ ,” he says and gestures wildly at Seungri, “you have to stop doing it so I can get this off my chest!”

“Okay, hyung. Sure I’ll stop, I’m sorry,” Seungri says, his heart in his throat.

Here it goes, he thinks, the other shoe is about to drop after a decade and a half.

They look at each other for a moment, Jiyong seemingly challenging Seungri to open his mouth again. When he’s sure Seungri is going to behave and actually listen, he lets out a shaky breath and breaks the eye contact.

“Even though I’ve probably known it like forever, I hadn’t realized,” Jiyong says while looking down at his adidas sweatpants, he fiddles with the one ring he has on his pinky.

“You’re gonna laugh at me, but I don’t care. I know you’ve been honest with me from the beginning, you’re brave and I’m not. So now I think I should be honest with you too.

“I love you Seungri-ah.”

He says this so softly that the sound of Seungri’s heart should drown it out, but Seungri can hear it above the noise of blood rushing through his veins. He has never heard anything as well as he hears this, and he thinks he feels it more than he actually hears it with the drums of his ears.

Seungri closes his eyes and fights against the tightness in his throat.

“Seungri, did you hear me?” Jiyong asks, his voice tiny and shaky.

All Seungri can do is to nod and try not to get washes away by the chaos around them. He fights the fire, the explosion and the waves of fear. He weathers it all, shakes and trembles in the wakes of the truth.

He is loved by Jiyong.

“Seungri.” The way Jiyong says his name hurts the most, shakes him the most. Makes him open his eyes, makes him furiously blink away the tears welling up.

“Hyung,” he manages to say, and then he’s enveloped by Jiyong’s arms, Jiyong’s mouth is on his and their tears roll down their cheeks.

“I love you,” Jiyong says against Seungri’s lips, again and again.

“I’ve always loved you,” Seungri tells him and kisses Jiyong back with his hands buried in the hair on the back of Jiyong’s head.

-

Seungri realizes he’s not made out of glass, or wood, or cinder, after all. The weight of their fate, of their love, has made him into pure diamond. The only thing strong enough to cut a diamond is another diamond, and Jiyong has shaped him into his perfect match. If Seungri is a star then his core is diamond, and when the burning hydrogen around him is thrown out into space then he and Jiyong can finally melt into one.

 

-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WOW THIS WAS SUCH A JOY AND PAIN TO WRITE! I hope that you, dear reader, enjoyed reading this story. Maybe this is a bit of a short ending, but then again I can't promised I will never revisit this story again ;) Please leave a comment and tell me what you thought of it ♥


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